Waltzing Through the Universe
by Ione
Summary: Collection of my Jane Foster Week stories. An archive that tells the stories of Jane Foster and her adventures discovering the universe beyond Yggdrasil. Entries include characters and references to the movies. Prompts: Space, an Associated Quote, AUs, Favorite Appearance, Respect, Jane in Thor: Ragnarok, and Free. COMPLETE.
1. Space

**Space**

The quiet vastness of space is a curious thing. When Jane first struck out on her own, piloting a tiny ship away from Thor, Loki, Ragnarok, and all the rest of the madness that had come to her since those ancient days in Puente Antiguo, she had assumed that pushing back against that living silence would be simple. Music, podcasts, TV...hell, she has the entire recorded history of humanity tucked away in a tiny corner of the ship's database. Plenty of distractions to keep her from feeling the silence, crouched like a panther beyond the thin hull of her cruiser.

Space is an animal that encompasses the universe. A simple animal, with animal needs. It breathes, moves, purrs around her. Dead planets, empty vessels, speeding comets drift through its vast belly, remnants of meals billions of years digested. Jane is defiantly alive; her ship's running lights poke tiny holes in the velvet dark of the universe, her engines generate heat and noise. Even her own pitiful warmth pushes back against annihilation.

Space doesn't like that. One day, Jane knows, she'll be a drifting hulk like so many others, cold and frozen and still. The thought doesn't frighten her; it's just a toll she has to pay. And until then, she's promised herself to see whatever it is she can see.

For space also nurtures life. Like neurons in a brain or bacteria in an intestinal tract, solar systems, rogue planets, and galaxies flourish despite the hostility of their host. And the shapes this life takes are breathtaking, beyond words. Almost even beyond emotion. Jane often only feels a swelling in her chest, a pressure like her ribs are about to burst, every time she sees a new nebula or stellar cluster. It's joy, sorrow, helplessness, gratitude...it's everything in different measures and Jane can't parse it.

She's approaching what the Aesir call a 'stellar womb'. A nebula in the process of collapse, its atoms fusing under intense gravitational pressure, hardening into stars and planets. A supernova remnant, its energy and matter in the process of recycling its staggering expenditure of energy and matter.

Dry, academic language. Understanding gleaned from telescopes and theories. It has nothing to do with what she sees before her.

"Amy, polarize the viewscreen."

"Polarized."

"Display at twenty times magnification."

"Acknowledged."

If someone had taken neon paint and splashed it across a length of black velvet, it would have made waves and splashes of color. But that could never have matched the intensity and vibrancy of what Jane saw now. Through the darkened screen, her eyes water and a tear trickles down the side of her nose. She sniffles.

It would be nice to have someone hold her hand. To join her in gasping as a filament of lightning—not lightning, it can't be lightning, but she's never seen anything like it before—arcs from one gaseous column to another, leaving crackles of red sparks showering through the green spread of the nebula. It would be nice to have someone wrap an arm around her shoulders, and to feel them tremble as she did at the overwhelming size of purple mountains of dust creeping towards the edge of the viewscreen.

It would be nice to share feelings that had no name in a silence that had no end and feel a little less frightened.

Her eyes can't parse the riot of colors; the sensors show a range of light waves far outside the human optic range. Amy is recording every bit of data, her artificial brain neatly cataloging every nuance of the phenomena, but she can't share Jane's wonder. She knows the symptoms of emotion, can go through the motions of sympathy, but she _understands_ it as little as Jane understands the nebula.

Does it matter? Does she need someone to share this with her?

In a few months, the communication beacons Jane has strewn behind her like breadcrumbs will relay this sight to the rest of humanity. They will watch it on newsfeeds in the palms of their hands, and shiver at the glory and terror of space. They will love her and hate her for bringing this new knowledge to them.

But they will understand.

Jane won't be alone.


	2. Quote

**Quote**

" _Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."_ – Maya Angelou

When Jane doesn't know what else to do, she works. When she knows precisely what to do, she still works. Work is what she's good at, what she knows. It's what she's always done.

But even she can't work twenty-four hours a day. Not even when she's making scientific strides every time she cracks open her laptop and she can gorge herself on information until she's sick with it. It's too much. The sheer overwhelming data load towers above her, a mountain higher than Everest; she'll never be able to scale it alone.

Nor does she want to. For the longest time, she'd been alone in pursuing her research and everything inch of progress depended on her ruthlessness in clawing for it. Now, a good chunk of the world's scientific community is chasing her like the sparkling tail of a comet, waiting for her to tell them what she needs to keep shooting forward.

So she works, and when she's tired, she stops.

Her woolen-socked feet pad lightly on the hard plating of the deck, subtle metallic gongs echoing through the hallways as though she were living in a monastery. The echoes are all that keep her company, and are as ephemeral as her sickly shadow sliding from wall to floor, wall to floor as she walks.

When Jane works the ship is quiet, save for the dialogue between her and Amy. She had always hated Darcy's insistence on playing music while they worked, even during the interminable pauses when the computers were compiling new models from fresh data. Jane worked then and works now with her whole focus. Even when the closest human being who might break that focus is over one hundred light years away.

When the work is done, though, she's discovered new ways to spend the endless hours rumbling through the quiet belly of space.

Knitting is fun. There are six beanies waiting to be wrapped for Darcy, a scarf for Erik, and dozens of pairs of socks that keep her toes toasty warm. Then there's volumes of poetry, towers of novels. Oceans of words she never had time to sail back on Earth, with its hurricane distractions. And then there's music.

Darcy would be proud of her.

It's her favorite way to spend the time, and has the added benefit of keeping her fit. Not a small concern when her pantry is overflowing with peanut butter and crackers and no one to look on in disgust if she heaps tablespoons of one onto handfuls of the other and crams them both into her mouth like a three-year-old.

But that isn't why she dances.

Amy picks a genre, an album, or a song, and Jane spins. Arms up, fingers sliding through stars glittering through the transparent viewscreen overhead. Feet stamping on the deck until cups rattle merrily on shelves. Smiling so broadly her cheeks hurt and her eyes squeeze shut.

It's hard to remember how much she used to hate it. Darcy would take her out, sometimes. Drag her to a club or a bar, shove her onto the floor and gyrate behind her to a twanging electric guitar. So close to the amplifiers her ears nearly burst. Jostled by bodies until she was slick with other people's sweat and peppered with bruises from their sharp elbows.

Here, among the stars...oh, here...it's a different thing.

Tonight, Amy's given her something loud, thrumming, fast, in a language she doesn't recognize but thinks might be Japanese. She could ask, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is she's moving, muscles warm and elastic, heart pounding, so joyful it seeps from her pores. She doesn't think about how she must look, she only feels what she feels. For once, she is one with her body and not at war with it in her mind.

In dancing, she becomes one entity, composed in equal measure of bone, muscle, flesh, spirit, and mind. Soul, too. Strange that she never really thought so, before. Jane hadn't believed in souls, not on Earth. In space, she can feel hers. It is her very essence, but a separate thing, at the same time. If her body were to die, now, in that instant, she doesn't believe the ship would be truly empty, wholly deserted.

Some part of her would still be there.

Waltzing through the universe.


	3. Alternate Universe

**Alternate Universe**

"Jane, there is an anomaly approximately five hundred meters off the port thruster."

She looks up from her book, a fish yanked by a hook. "Nature of anomaly?"

"Unknown."

"Why didn't you report it sooner?"

"Sensors detected the disturbance only three seconds ago."

"Will we hit the anomaly?"

"Not on our current trajectory. We will pass beyond sensor range in two minutes."

"All stop."

The ship judders beneath her as Amy cuts the engines. Jane stays seated until they make the shift from FTL to impulse speed. Despite the inertial dampeners, she's found herself flying ass-over-teakettle more than once during a sudden deceleration.

"Answering all stop."

"Set a course back towards the anomaly. Keep us at a five hundred meter distance at least; adjust if it changes course."

"Acknowledged."

An anomaly, even an unexplained one, is nothing new. Jane finishes knitting off her row and sticks the needles into the ball of rich red yarn she's slowly shaping into a sweater. It's her first attempt at one and already she can see puckers where she's dropped stitches, but she's proud of the ragged hem anyway. It feels good to make something from nothing, to fashion something by hand and watch it grow.

"We are within five hundred meters."

"Any thoughts?"

"The elevated readings of tachyon particles would indicate that the anomaly is temporal in nature. There is insufficient data to speculate."

"Then let's gather more data," Jane said, tripping lightly down the hallway to her lab. Amy takes care of piloting the ship; she interprets the data. Amy's already relaying the signals onto her bank of screens by the time she arrives.

"Definitely tachyons, all right," she mutters. Because the little slippery particles move faster than light, it's almost impossible to get a true reading on where they are at any moment. Nor is there any way for her to tell how large the spread of particles really is. The moment they enter space, they zip off beyond the reach of her sensors.

She suspects Amy is right; it may be a temporal tear, or pocket, or hole. Her heart flip-flops, uneasy. Even a tiny tear in the veil between space and subspace can shred her in an instant.

"Back us off, Amy. Another five hundred meters."

"Acknowledged."

The ship lurches then, a wounded animal wallowing from a fatal wound. The stars tilt crazily outside the window and every joint in the hull moans aloud. Jane's knees skin against the decking as she falls.

"The anomaly has penetrated the hull." Amy is unperturbed. Jane nearly vomits.

"Where?"

"The lounge."

"Did we vent any atmosphere?"

"Negative. The hull is sound."

"It penetrated the hull without damaging it? How is that possible?"

"Affirmative. Unknown."

She shivers. If an active nuclear warhead were lodged in her ship, she couldn't be in worse danger. By rights, she should already be vaporized bits of human, floating through space. But she isn't.

Jane has never seen a tachyon phenomena before. As far as she knows, no one has.

"Amy, do you think there's any way we could lure it back out?"

"Unknown. Any effort to move the anomaly might result in destruction of the ship."

"That's what I thought. Oh well, then," she means to sound breezy, unaffected, but she chokes on her dry throat and her whole body shakes. "I guess…I guess I'll go take a look, then."

She doesn't bother to take anything with her. Whatever data she can gather will be lost the moment the ship is destroyed. For a moment she considers leaving a farewell message…but no. What can she say to the people she loves that she hasn't already said? When she turned her back on Earth, she said all her goodbyes.

"Make an entry in the log."

"Acknowledged. Transmitting."

Jane walks down the hallway, step by measured step. There isn't a single, solitary sound except for her unsteady breaths whistling through clenched teeth. She's taken five steps when she needs to stop, lean against the wall, and will her heart to stop pounding.

"Come on, Jane," she wheezes, "Come on. It's okay. You can do this."

Her feet wobble, frozen and dead when she puts her weight on them. All the blood has raced to her heart; her face and hands are like ice.

"The first person to see what a tachyon burst looks like. If it looks like anything at all."

It's not a comforting thought. But she's walking again.

Despite what Amy said, Jane can't believe it when she steps into the lounge and sees it intact. Nothing has shifted by so much as a millimeter, not even the loose loops of yarn caught on the wicker basket that holds her sweater-to-be. The only thing that's different is a weird prismatic shape hanging in midair, noticeable only by the distortion of light as it passes through.

It's a pucker in the air. It's not frightening at all.

It doesn't shift as Jane steps over the threshold. She inches closer, not daring to breathe, wincing at the audible drumming of her heart rattling against breastbone.

She stops beneath it and waits.

Nothing happens.

A thought—absurd, ridiculous, destructive—pops into her head. Her fingers twitch.

"Don't," she closes her eyes, curling her fingers into a fist. "Don't be an idiot."

Her fist rises, buoyant as a helium balloon.

"This is so stupid, Jane," she says, eyes wide, watching her fingers strech out, "So stupid."

Her trembling fingers graze the anomaly, and Jane tumbles forward, yanked from the smooth clear current of time's orderly passing.

* * *

The first sensation she has is pressure against her ears, as though she were diving deep underwater. As she makes sense of the watercolor of light around her, Jane realizes that it isn't pressure, but sound. Thousands of bodies press around her—though she doesn't feel them and slips through them like a ghost—and their mouths are wide, smiling, cheering.

She can't see why.

Being a ghost has its advantages. Jane swallows her uncertainty where it puddles, clammy and cold in her incorporeal stomach, and wades forward until she can see two enormous thrones where two figures sit, smiling benignly at the crowd's volcanic enthusiasm.

Jane has a swift thought that perhaps she _has_ died, perhaps she _is_ a ghost, because one of those figures is her.

She doesn't recognize herself.

Jane-on-the-throne is draped in blue silk and heavy gold. There's a crown on her head and bracers on her wrists, a long dagger shining naked and sharp hanging from her belt. Her back is ramrod straight and a statue's carven features would have more expression than hers do.

Jane-in-the-crowd sneaks closer, skirting the edge of the center aisle as though her doppelganger could see her coming.

Jane-on-the-throne notices no one. Her eyes skip over individual faces and only absorb the crowd; she sees vast numbers and lets them see her. It is only when Thor reaches for her and takes her hand that a spark of a smile lights her face.

Jane-in-the-crowd nearly jumps out of her nonexistent skin. Thor, not as she knew him, not as he is…but as he will be. King of Asgard.

And she, herself, Jane…his queen.

Thor speaks, but she can't distinguish his words. There is only a ringing in her ears like rumbles of distant thunder. Like, she giggles, the adults on _Charlie Brown._

Wah- _wah_ -wah- _waaaah._

Jane-on-the-throne doesn't speak. Not once. She doesn't even look as though she _wants_ to speak. She's a tall, straight sunflower, bent to the face of Thor's mighty sun. She doesn't waver an instant.

The crowd cheers. Cheers for their King and Queen, and not a face within it glows with anything less than radiant enthusiasm.

Jane-in-the-crowd frowns. This is not an Asgard she knows, not the Aesir she remembers. Is this the future? Have the tachyons launched her forward in their reckless flight through time and space, flung her to this distant day when she sits at Thor's side, silent and docile, receiving the adoration of people who once despised her?

Is this her fate?

Her reaction is so immediate and visceral Jane actually flinches back; as she does, the scene changes, one frame to the next. In a span of time too short even to be called an instant, she is out of the future—if future it is—and back in her present.

The anomaly is gone. Jane is once again standing in the middle of the lounge, hand upraised and arm aching.

"Jane?"

"Yeah, Amy?" her voice scratches and she coughs.

"Where did you go?"

"I…I don't know. Did I go somewhere? How long was I gone?"

"You were not on the ship. You were absent fifty-six minutes and twelve seconds. There was no energy discharge when you disappeared. You were there and then you were not. When you returned, the anomaly vanished. I have no explanations."

"Neither do I," Jane slumps into a chair, too sluggish to keep her knitting basket from spilling to the floor when her clumsy elbow jostles it. Whorls of scarlet yarn make waves against gray metal.

She leans back, head too heavy for her weary neck to support. "I guess…resume course."

"Acknowledged."

The ship hums to life, none the worse for wear. They'd all gotten through it okay.

Is she okay?

Jane-on-the-throne. Jane, Queen of Asgard. Jane…Thor's wife. Her body aches all over with cold, with sudden remembered longing. He was always so warm. He had covered every inch of her when they'd lain together in his great bed. His body had blocked out sorrow and fear.

Is she okay?

Before Jane falls asleep, her eyes flutter open. Her ship, her lounge, her books…her knitting on the floor. Her mission.

Every little bit of it, hers.

She sleeps, dreaming in white streaks of distant stars.


	4. Favorite Appearance

**Favorite Appearance**

" _You're—?"_

" _Loki. You may have heard of me."_

"That _was for New York!"_

Every morning, Jane drinks her first cup of coffee in the cockpit, curled in the pilot's chair, manually verifying Amy's flawless course, speed, and system calibrations. It's a routine she's fallen into, comforting as the milk and sugar she measures into her latte every morning, courtesy of NASA's zero-g espresso maker. It assures her that things are fine, that she's alone. That everything is going according to what threadbare plan she has.

When she steps into the cockpit that morning and sees his long legs stretched across the navigational panel, she isn't surprised, not really. She squeals as boiling coffee slops over the back of her hand at her involuntary start. It hurts. The heat, that is.

He grins. She grins too, with a somewhat sharper edge, and wipes her dripping hand on his quilted tunic, enjoying how his smile wilts into disgust.

"How on Earth did you—that wormhole," she marvels, "The entrance was only three millimeters wide. How in hell did you manage to fit through?"

"Need I remind you of my shapeshifting abilities?" he's so smug it's like oil dripping from the walls. "I make do when it's required."

"And was it required?" she resists the urge to throw his feet off the console and instead makes herself as comfortable as she can in the copilot's chair. It's cold and stiff. She's never sat in it, after all. It puts a sour taste to her morning that she refuses to acknowledge.

He _won't—_ he _can't—_ put her off her stride like this.

"Hmm. You aren't pleased to see me?"

"You risked missing me entirely and possibly suffocating in the vacuum of space. Even Frost Giants aren't completely invulnerable. I'm happy you're not dead, but we haven't seen each other since—" her throat spasms involuntarily. _Involuntarily_ , she insists. Ragnorok is long behind her; she isn't still frightened of it. Or of Hela, and her holocaust of emerald flames.

Loki understands, and his grin softens.

"I only missed you, Jane. We had such a sweet encounter, last time around. Can you blame a man if he finds himself still captivated by your many sterling qualities?"

She sips her coffee to hide her smile, which is a little more self-satisfied than she'd like it to be. "I _am_ pretty damn charming, it's true, but I don't think my smile dragged you six hundred light years from Asgard."

"I have not called Asgard my home since Thor took the throne."

It sends an odd shiver down her spine. "He's King, then?"

"He is. Three months since."

"I didn't hear about it."

"You have been...beyond the reach of most news."

Jane wonders why no one from Earth had told her, but what difference would it make which King was sitting on the throne of the Realm Eternal? Odin had given her whatever she required to embark on her journey in order to separate her from his beloved son, but whether he had died or simply ceded the throne to Thor could mean nothing to her now. Her orbit and Thor's have long since spun asunder.

She had assumed she and Loki had as little to do with each other, but clearly she was wrong.

She drinks her coffee, watching him over the rim of her mug. He can't bear the silence, no more now than ever he could. He tells her precisely what she wants to know.

"Thor and I have parted ways."

"Didn't you want to go?"

He doesn't answer. He wants to lie to her, she can tell, but his journey across the universe must have exhausted him. He's too pale; skin transparent and thin as paper. He can't summon a lie, he can't confess the truth. She guesses at both; his wince tells her she's right.

"He told you to go."

"You are," he doesn't gasp, but the words tear from him as though she's knocked the breath from his lungs, "No one can flatter you, can he, whatever he might say? I have crossed galaxies to see you again, Jane Foster, and you will not spare a smile for me?"

She does smile, then. It would be cruel not to.

"I'm happy to see you, Loki." It's true. She's a little miffed that her usual routine has been so unceremoniously disrupted, but she's been alone for over eight months now. A guest, even one so mercurial as Loki, is a welcome distraction. Well, not a distraction, but...

A girl has needs.

 _She_ likes to put her feet up on the console. It takes her a moment, but eventually she stretches her legs across his and flexes her toes. She's wearing a new pair of socks, fluffy pink and purple. It took her ages to get the chevron pattern correct, and a few rows are wonky from where she'd unraveled stitch after stitch. They look ridiculous against his tall black leather boots, shining hard and pure as obsidian in the cold light of pale stars.

She wiggles her toes again and slurps loudly at her coffee. Whatever else, she _won't_ have him romanticizing her. He'll have her as she is or he'll have nothing at all.

He doesn't. It's clear in the sweep of narrowed eyes from her odd socks to her unbrushed hair and the sneer on his thin lips that she isn't giving him the illusion he came here to find.

But she hasn't given him an illusion, not now and not ever, so she waits to hear the truth. Or as close as he can come to the truth, anyway.

It comes soon enough.

"I dreamed of you."

She doesn't reply. She hasn't dreamed of herself, or him, or anything but the stars in weeks. Not that she can remember, anyway.

"You were in Asgard. Dressed in blue. You were...with Thor."

Cold unease congeals in her gut. "It was a dream."

"Then you're not going back?"

 _To him_ goes unspoken, but not unheard.

"No."

"Good."

"Would it matter to you if I did?"

Now he's the silent one. Jane smiles. He doesn't love her, not at all. No romantic entanglement has dragged him, fish in net, across the universe. It's only...he doesn't want to be alone.

If Thor has really ascended the throne, Jane can only imagine the reverberations of joy that are spreading throughout the 'civilized' branches of Yggdrasil, the millions upon billions upon trillions of people who are chanting his name. Asgard's golden, prodigal son. Tested in dust and fire, proven worthy time and again.

Jane looks out the viewscreen and has a moment to be glad that she isn't there to see it. The severed edges between her and Thor are still ragged; like Loki, her instincts are to shy away rather than endure raw, rough pain.

He isn't going to reply, she realizes. Silence is thick between them. It's like being alone, only a thousand times more awkward. She won't stand it.

"Amy, set heading back to the entrance of the wormhole we discovered sixteen hours ago."

"Acknowledged."

"Throwing me out so soon?"

"You're not here for me."

"Perhaps not," he doesn't bother to lie, which makes Jane feel a bit cheap, all things considered. He spreads his lies so liberally elsewhere. "But I cannot deny that you make the voyage worthwhile."

"Hmm."

"Ah," he gasps, putting his hands over his chest. She's reminded of Shakespearean actors playing for the balcony, and smothers her smile in the pretense of enjoying his performance. What could the Globe offer compared to this? "I have wounded you. How may I remedy my mistake?"

She's been on her own for over eight months. That explains the rush of slick arousal that pools between her thighs. Given the reptilian dilation of his slitted nostrils, he smells its salty sweetness. His smile is sickening, sinful.

"Well, well. Ms. Foster."

"Shut up," she mutters, pretending not to feel his long fingers tickling her instep. "Or I'll smack you again."

When he pulls her into her lap—she goes willingly, but whatever—she finds him hard and ready. And if she'd been doubtful before, well...doesn't _that_ just stroke a girl's ego?

"What if Thor could see you now?" he hisses against her parted lips.

"Shut up," she murmurs between greedy kisses, "Or I'll hit you again."

* * *

Note: It has been A Day (TM), so this was written under the influence of four (maybe five) very stiff gins. Reader beware!


	5. Respect

**Respect**

Jane's eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when Amy announces she's just received a high-priority message from Earth.

Her ears perk up. High priority messages are rare, requiring collaboration between Asgard and Earth to share the power load. She's been waiting for a data packet on the globular cluster she passed three weeks ago. There were some odd gravitational pockets she'd been unable to interpret; maybe the scientists on Earth have had better luck at last.

"Read it."

"It is a notification from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. You have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Shall I read the entire letter to you?"

Jane can't respond. Her tongue is stuck to the roof her mouth by shock and strawberry jelly. Amy takes her silence as assent and begins:

"Dear Dr. Jane Foster, it is the honor of this body to inform you that you have been unanimously declared the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. We regret that we are unable to inform you in person, and that the nature of your work will prevent—"

"Stop," Jane croaks, swallowing hard. "That's okay. Thanks."

"A large number of other messages were sent in the same data stream. I have analyzed them and believe they are all letters of congratulations. Senders include President of the United States, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Great Britain—"

"I get it, Amy. I don't—don't read them. I'll do it later."

A bubble of peanut butter bursts over her fingers. She's squeezed the stuffing out of her sandwich; her fingers are pressed together so that the tips of them are white. It costs her some effort to relax her hand; her muscles are stiff and sore.

"Is it a Wednesday, then?"

"This message was transmitted on a Wednesday," Amy answers. "It is now Monday of the following week, according to Eastern Standard Time on Earth. The message was transmitted at the traditional hour in which a Nobel Prize winner is usually contacted."

She laughs; it tugs at her ribs. "They would, wouldn't they? Who else was in consideration?"

"That information was not included. I can relay your desire for further clarification during our next transmission to Earth."

"No. It doesn't matter. I almost feel sorry for them...I don't think anyone could compete with this, after all. Better luck next time."

Jane sucks peanut butter from her fingers and tosses the rest of her lunch in the trash. Everything feels disjointed in light of this revelation. It seems wrong somehow to keep on chewing on her pedestrian sandwich when she's just received news that would have made her scream with joy a few short years ago.

She's made it. Her name will join only two other women on the illustrious list of Nobel Physicists. Her research will be enshrined forever, every note cataloged, every detail of her life scrutinized. They'll be chattering about her even more than usual, dragging out all the roller-coaster dips and dives of her life. Her parents' early deaths. Her clear aptitude for the sciences.

How she was humiliated for her theories. How she held on with ragged, broken fingernails to what little funding she could rip away from bigger, more mainstream projects.

They revel in that. Ever since landing squarely in the public eye in the aftermath of Loki's invasion of Earth, Jane's underdog status has made her a public darling. Or devil, depending.

One thing's for sure: everyone loves a rebel proved right.

She hates it. Every interview that gushes over her years living in a trailer in the middle of the desert—chasing storms and foreign constellations, thought ludicrous by every professor with tenure—makes her relive those days of teeth-grinding fury. And she had been furious. Knowing she was right, constantly being told she was wrong.

For a while after Thor descended from the sky, she had taken fierce pleasure in the outpouring of validation from the scientific community. But it had grown too saccharine and blind for Jane's taste.

She didn't want to be a hero. She didn't want to be a rebel, or a goddess, or a queen. Not of science, or Asgard, or anything else.

She just wanted respect.


	6. Ragnarok

**Ragnarok**

"She will not—" fuzzy crackles of static cut Thor off mid-sentence, "—threat is gone, Jane."

"Thor," she pushes her hair off her forehead for what feels like the thirtieth time that conversation, "you're not listening to me. There is a wolf silhouette spanning six solar systems right in front of me. I can see it from two light years away! You're telling me that isn't a sign?"

"Hela is gone," she can't tell how much he heard, because his answer is always the same. "I destroyed her myself. You were there."

"I know," she flinches. Memories of Ragnarok are not pleasant for either of them to recall, "But she's the Goddess of _Death_ , Thor. Can't you admit that there's even a slight chance she survived?"

Dead static fills the monitor, the brilliant white-blue of electricity. The Tesseract is the only energy source strong enough to power this little video chat, but even it can't offer crystal-clear reception eight hundred light years away. So they're stuck, fighting lag and ionic interference like trying to Skype from Barrow, Alaska, when the fate of the frickin' universe hangs on this _goddamn call going through._

Jane drums her fingers on the communication console and pushes her hair back again. Her forehead stings.

"—she is there, she's licking her wounds. She can't threaten us anymore."

Jane knows she missed his attempt to comfort her, his rationalization that the hunchback wolf she sees written in starlight and space dust is mere delusion on her part. An attempt, perhaps, to mitigate the guilt he feels about the last time they saw this sign of catastrophe hanging low in the skies above Asgard. But he hadn't believed her then, either.

"She _is_ here. You've seen the data; look at it, really look at it, and tell me I'm lying or wrong. Find Loki. He'll tell you the truth."

 _He won't want to admit it_ , Jane thinks, _but he'll tell you the truth anyway. I think. I hope._

"Loki is no longer of Asgard. Our ways have parted."

She wants to tell him she knows, but Thor will not appreciate discovering that she had Loki have continued their intermittent—it's not a relationship, she can't call it that—but their intermittent _whatever_ since she and Thor broke up. Or parted ways. Or however he wants to phrase it.

Untangling that Gordian knot is a headache that will just have to wait.

"Then have your scientists take a look. They'll confirm what I'm saying. I know it."

"I do not think you are lying. Perhaps you have misinterpreted—"

"I haven't misinterpreted anything! In case you forgot, _I_ was the one who told you that the huge phenomena in Asgard's sky was something to be concerned about!"

"I—forgotten," his words come through distorted, so she can't be sure if he intends to sound so irritated, "But perhaps you have forgotten that I killed Hela?"

"No. Thor, I just…I just want to make sure that everything's all right. What she did to Asgard…I can't stand if that could happen anywhere else. Would you please have your scientists analyze the data?"

"Of course."

Just like that, their spat has sizzled out. How is it that when they fought on this subject the first time, it built and swelled until they were raging volcanoes, spouting ash and lava?

When she closes her eyes sometimes, she can see the bodies. Strewn across broken streets, unrecognizable as humanoid forms. By the time Thor brought her to Asgard to help drive Hela away, they had already suffered and repelled two hellish invasions of her decaying armies.

She swallows and squeezes her eyes shut, shivering in the perfectly warm air of the ship. By the time Thor brought her to Asgard, what help she could offer came far too late for over ten thousand Aesir. Another three thousand lost their lives, their immortal lives, buying time for her plan to go into effect. Without her, Jane can't even conceive how many would have been lost while Thor battered at Hela with his puny fists alone.

"It was not your fault, Jane."

"I know," she grits out, trying to keep her rage pressurized. She wants to say _It's yours_ , but they've walked this ground already and she doesn't have the energy to walk it again. "I just don't want it to happen again. I'm going to see if I can get closer and take some more accurate readings. We were headed this way because Amy detected radio signals from the fourth planet in the second system; that could mean an intelligent civilization."

"No!" he barks, "Don't go any closer."

"Why not?" if she were Loki, looking to twist the knife, she would smile innocently. As it is, her tone is flat and pale as paper, "If Hela's gone, everything should be all right."

"You think she is there. What will seeking her out get you, if not—"

There is no mistaking that condescending tone. When did he stop trusting her?

"Yes, I do think she's there. And since we both planned to kill her last time, don't you think I should try to find out how she survived?"

"You will get yourself killed."

"I'm a lot stronger than you think," Jane squares her shoulders and bares her teeth at the monitor, "I'm tough. Smart." The words snap on her tongue.

"I know. The first hour we met, I knew."

"Then trust me."

"I do trust you! But seeking Hela out on your own will get you killed, and I can't—"

No static interrupts him until it is clear that he only stopped because he is fighting…fear? Thor, afraid?

She loses the feed for a moment and it sends a shiver down her spine. She _knew_ she was right! Not but that she'd be happy to be wrong in this instance, because she still has nightmares about Hela's laugh and she would very much not like to meet her without backup, but justification is sweet nonetheless.

"Jane, I could not bear it if you died."

Her jaw actually drops. Like a stone to the bottom of the ocean. There are tears on his cheeks. Actual tears. She has never seen him cry; even when Loki died, his fury shook the heavens, but his eyes were dry.

Her throat works; she coughs. "I'll—I'll be okay. I promise. Just half a light year closer, and then I'll back off. She won't notice, especially if she's busy elsewhere. It'll be okay."

"You cannot know that."

"Actually, I do. Remember? We drew her attention and then attacked from behind? It was sort of the whole plan. Phenomenal cosmic powers…itty bitty attention span."

He doesn't catch her reference now either, but it still makes her want to giggle. Hela and her video game weak spot.

"Come home, Jane. I miss you."

"But you don't live on Earth anymore, do you?"

"No. Asgard might be your home, one day."

The axis of Jane's universe stops in rotation. The stars hold their breath. This is it; the moment her path diverges, the instant she can choose. Go on alone, or go back to him. The future she saw in the tachyon distortion might be real if she wishes it. Wish upon a star. There are countless to choose from.

She could go back.

She takes a deep breath and says, "I'm going to get my data first. Then I'll think about it. Deal?"

He smiles, weakly. "Deal."

* * *

So this is a different take on the prompt, since I have not seek _Thor: Ragnarok_ and…eh, I don't know if I will. I still hope my thoughts about Jane's place in the version of Ragnarok I imagine (which is darker by far than it sounds like the movie's depiction is) came across clearly.


	7. Arrival

**Arrival**

When Jane comes home, she comes _home_. To Earth.

NASA coordinates everything two months in advance, and her arrival goes exactly to script. At two forty-five in the afternoon, she sets the cruiser down in an isolated field outside of Topeka, Kansas. The closest anyone is allowed to wait is outside a half-mile landing zone, though she's heard some of the press have attached military scopes on their cameras so they can still catch the historic image of her arrival. But she isn't the one everyone sees; Jane lies low in the cruiser while a body double emerges from beneath the hulking vessel and waves shyly to the crowd.

Jane, inside the ship and a half-mile away, can hear the crowd's cheering. The deception will be announced eventually, but for now, Jane's glad of another few days' anonymity. It's strange enough to see the sun, grass, and sky again, and those are all inanimate objects that want nothing from her.

A mob of seven hundred fifty thousand is pure, undiluted, grasping chaos.

In any case, the deception is also essential. Once 'Jane' has been whisked away to a luxury hotel, Jane is ushered from the ship straight into decontamination and debriefing. Her ship is swarmed by hordes of scientists bent on stripping the last kilobit of data from her records. _She_ is overwhelmed by doctors and politicians; the former to ensure she's healthy after twenty-six unassisted months in deep space, and the latter to make use of that experience for their own causes.

Jane suffers them all except the politicians. It isn't until the Secretary of State herself sits down opposite Jane in the clean room tent surrounded by cornfields that she finally deigns to even respond to their questions.

"Well, Dr. Foster. Quite an adventure you've had. I'm sure my colleagues have conveyed this, but we'd all appreciate knowing what you plan on doing next?"

"Mrs. Sanders, all I want to do right now is see my friends. I don't have any plans beyond that, except that I'd really like to have some of that vodka you brought in with you."

"They tell me this is your favorite brand; I read it on your cargo manifest. Twelve bottles, correct? When did you run out?"

"Four months ago."

Ice clinks into a glass and the vodka pours like oil. Jane pauses a moment to consider how they might have doctored it, but it's been a stressful day and she actually drank her last vodka on the rocks over a year ago. However, it's none of the State Department's business if she was a bit of a lush.

"Cheers."

"You're not drinking."

"I'm on the clock," she has enough courtesy to wait until Jane's taken her first sip, then forges ahead, "You understand we're a little confused. As far as we knew, you were not planning on returning. This was a one-way ticket for you."

"That's not the way you advertised it."

"Suicide missions are not very popular. And they're a son of a bitch to spin."

Jane laughs. "I didn't plan on coming back because…well, space is big and dangerous. You've received my flight records; you know how close it came sometimes. The odds of my returning safely, even if I'd stayed inside the Milky Way, were never great."

"But now you're back, which leaves us the question: what do you intend to do now?"

"I've told you that already. I want to see my friends. Did you even ask them to come?"

"They're all waiting for you; you can see them as soon as you've answered all my questions to my satisfaction."

Oh, no. Jane has not crossed the vastness of space, conquering fears both external and existential, to be intimidated by a woman in a mauve pantsuit.

She stands. "Let me tell you what I intend to do. I intend to finish this drink. And then I intend to leave this room, find my friends, and never speak to you again. Now, the only way you're going to hold me a second longer is by physical force, and if you do that you'd better just go ahead and shoot me, because if you don't, you'll have made enemies of the Avengers Initiative, not to mention the current king of Asgard.

"Now," she drains her vodka, enjoying the slow heat in her veins and the lazy way the world spins, "does that answer your question?"

Marla Sanders has an excellent poker face. Her pleasant half-moon smile and heavily-lidded eyes give nothing away, but Jane likes to imagine there's some real humor underneath that bland exterior. Otherwise it's just a tragic waste.

Her only sign of displeasure is a pregnant pause before she replies, "Perfectly, Dr. Foster. I hope that once you've seen your friends and taken some time to relax, we can continue this conversation. You'll realize the value of cooperation with the United States' government. You _are_ a citizen, after all. I would like to think you still feel some loyalty there."

"Yes. I am an American. But you know what, Mrs. Sanders? America is a microbe on the back of a flea on the back of a dog and—actually, you know what?" Jane shakes her head, cutting herself off, because it's been fourteen months since she's had a drink and she's tired and dizzy and was never that good with words anyway.

"Space is really damn big. Once you've seen it, even a tiny fraction of it, you'll realize that none of this matters at all. Only people matter. I left, and I came back, for them. _All_ of them."

"A lovely sentiment. But no one on Earth has seen space and will not appreciate your perspective. It won't take long before you realize that, and when you do, I'll still be here."

"Great. Be here. I'll be elsewhere."

Jane pushes open the tent flaps and looks around. Corn. Twilight sky. The smell of rain-soaked soil. She wants to flop to the ground and roll in it, like a dog.

A dark shape lunges out of the shadows and knocks them both over.

"Jane! Oh, Jane!" Darcy's hair is in her mouth, "It's so good to see you! Holy shit, I didn't think I'd miss you this much! But there's a difference when you're just across an ocean or in Antarctica or something, but…space! How was space?"

"Good," she's muffled, squashed, and absolutely delighted, "I missed you too! Where is everyone?"

"Waiting. I swear Tony's about to spontaneously combust, he's so mad. But yeah, the whole crew's been here since four this morning. We are just…totally smashed. I think Romanoff's still sober, but who can tell. You've got some catching up to do."

"Excellent. Now help me up; I think you've broken my rib."

Darcy hauls her upright so fast Jane sees spots. Then she crushes her in another bone grinding hug.

"I missed you," her voice wobbles like a top about to fall, "Don't go away for so long next time, okay?"

"Okay," Jane has traveled from infuriated to giggling to touched to crying in the span of two minutes, and she already misses the quiet, orderly void of space, but she says, "I won't."

"Promise?"

"Yeah. I promise."

 **Fin**


End file.
